Story Map——
Translating the story being learned into pictures
First, the teacher will select a model English text that is slightly above the language level of the pupils. This model text will contain the vocabulary, grammar knowledge, syntax and paragraph structure, and that pupils should be learning at that stage.
Mr. Richards has chosen the short text Dear Zoo for Y2 children, asking a fun question to attract the children's attention:
If you could get a pet from the zoo,
what would you want?
Before teaching the text, he picks out the core vocabulary and spends 5 minutes supporting the children to memorise the vocabulary quickly, with a bilingual teaching assistant.
He then reads the text sentence by sentence with the class and leads them to create a story map, which summarizes the main points of the story in simple shapes, like a “map” for the story.
Here is the story map Mr. Richards created with the children. Can you look at the map and say in English what animal the zoo gave to Y2 children?
As the Y2 pupils study the story, they transform the words they read into pictures to deepen their memory.
After drawing the story map, the pupils have a basic grasp of the storyline and have learned to read every word in the short text! Can you guess the general content against the story map?
Check out the text below to see the answer!
Interpreting textual stories with drama
Writing begins with enjoying and sharing the story.
With the story map, Mr. Richards led the children to act out the story and read it aloud, which was the children's favourite part of the class.
Dramatic interpretation is particularly important in English language teaching, as it allows children to be immersed in an English environment through contextual dialogues and performance. This English environment will help pupils memorise efficiently and deepen their knowledge of English learning.
While looking at the story map, the children recall the words and phrases and express them physically. In the active classroom atmosphere, the whole class soon memorised the story and was able to recite it.
By imitating, the children have mastered the whole story, and it becomes much easier to use their creativity to rewrite the story.
While retaining the basic sentence structure, Mr. Richards uses sticky notes to cover up the original key vocabulary.
He then asks the children to create their own version of the story by changing the model text by substituting persons and foods, replacing synonyms, changing the ending, adding new elements to the story and so on.
To make the expression more organised, pupils begin to learn the most basic, and most important techniques of expression:
First——Then——Next——Finally
Pupils use these words to retell the story orally, while the teaching assistant reads out the Chinese words and pupils interpret them. Repetition helps pupils develop the habit of expressing themselves logically and provides structure to use later in their writing.
Through "imitation + rewriting", teachers can guide pupils to consciously use the vocabulary and grammatical knowledge learned in the first three processes, and ultimately build up their vocabulary and improve their language skills.
In this way, the children complete the process of listening, reading, acting, and adapting a classic story.
The final stage of T4W is from imitative writing to independent writing.
In imitative writing, Mr. Richards guides the children in practising paragraph writing. Once Mr. Richards has fed the pupils with enough standardised text and the pupils are comfortable with paraphrasing and rewriting, he can begin to provide the pupils with new topics and materials to guide them in their independent writing.
At this point, the basic skills that pupils have learned and practised in the previous steps can be applied. The pupils' willingness to express themselves and their enthusiasm for creativity has been stimulated after the previous steps, and the pupils can start the writing exercise that carries their independent thoughts more smoothly.
Before writing, each child is asked to think about the characters, the plot, and the logic of the story's development. Pupils will then begin to write independently.
The movement from imitation to innovation to independent application can be adapted to suit the needs of learners at any stage. Feedback from pupils indicates that the T4W approach is more interesting and engaging than other English language teaching methods, and that it stimulates pupils' motivation to improve their literacy and expressive skills, and that T4W can even be applied to other subjects to enable pupils to read and write different types of content.
After 2 weeks T4W learning, Year 2 students can complete an article independently.
After practising in school, pupils become more comfortable with writing in English as long as they can talk.
Many parents want to know how they can help their children by using this method at home?
Mr. Richard’s answer is:
A lot of the practice that can be done around T4W at home should be verbal, as then the teachers can turn this in to correct writing at school.
✔ Practise reading the model text with them, with the story map and actions - teach them to read it with expression, play 'word tennis' or have a reading race.
✔ Ask them to verbally translate the text into Mandarin.
✔ Learn the meaning of new vocabulary in the story.
✔ Practise changing parts or characters in the story.
✔ Role play - pretend you are one of the characters in the story - how do you feel and what did you see at different points?
✔ Practise spellings of new or keywords.
✔ Draw a story map for the story you are learning.
✔ Change the story and draw a story map for your new story.
✔ Try to use phrases from the story in everyday life, when they apply to the situation.
Different approaches to education are always explored.
Harrow has always been committed to adopting world-leading pedagogies to help pupils improve their learning efficiency.
Bilingual learning is not only about language but also about learning to express oneself. Whether it is the RWI programme or the T4W approach, it is all about helping pupils to learn the thinking behind the language from the root, and even to express themselves to others and tell their own stories in both languages.
